Gallium nitride (GaN) is suitable for a broad range of applications. For example, due to its direct wide bandgap, Gallium nitride is a good material for artificial lighting and optoelectronics, including multi-color light-emission diodes (LEDs) from red to ultraviolet and violet diode lasers used in Blu-ray players. Gallium nitride may have other advantages, including high dielectric strength, high operating temperature, high current density, high speed switching, and low on-resistance. These features make gallium nitride useful in high voltage and high power electronics, such as electrical vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, smart grids, and switch mode power supplies. High electron mobility enables applications of gallium nitride-based high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) in wireless infrastructure, high-frequency communication systems, active electronically scanned array radars, and aerospace systems.
Conventional synthetic techniques for growing gallium nitride films include metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), and hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). In general, a high substrate temperature, from 750 to 1100° C., is needed to achieve efficient decomposition of precursor materials to provide sufficient nitrogen supply and promote atom surface diffusion.